


now i feel your heart beating (alive again)

by alltheworldsinmyhead



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials Fusion, Ark AU, Arranged Marriage, Bellarke, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28079157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltheworldsinmyhead/pseuds/alltheworldsinmyhead
Summary: Once upon a time, the disgraced Princess from the Phoenix Station held the hands of the Guard-turned-Janitor and they promised each other devotion in front of Vera Kaine as their souls watched from their sides.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 18
Kudos: 93





	now i feel your heart beating (alive again)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, guys! As I am officially done with the 100 now and also done with bellarke (it's just too painful, in light of everything that happened with the show) I have decided to post my last, most-finished draft of their story. The story is not even nearly close to being polished, but I probably won't come back to it and it felt like a waste to keep it on my disc forever. Have fun ;) 
> 
> Special dedication to the legend, the myth, the fucking QUEEN - Lana, thanks for all the encouragement, I love you with all my heart <3 Everyone, go check out her new poetry collection, Persephone in the Motel Room! I fucking guarantee you, you will be weeping tears of awe.

“You cannot change what you are, only what you do.”

― Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass

*

Aurora Blake goes into her first labor when a comet passes the Ark; it’s blazing and huge, and so dangerously close that its heat radiates through the metal walls of the station. On the corridors and in mess hall, many people who believe in this kind of things, sink down on their knees and pray for salvation against reason and calculations.

Bellamy is born in the midst of screams and light, and Penelope is born right after him. They consist of two pairs of matching brown eyes, little chubby hands and tiny paws, soft dark hair, and soft grey fur. Aurora presses him to her chest, eyes glassy with tears and Atlas pats Penelope’s back and then they wait for the death that never comes. The comet continues its lonely journey through the vast cosmic space and the Ark continues to spin around Earth, equally solitary.

Six years later, Octavia comes easy into this word and this time, it’s Bellamy, who holds her in his arms, whispering comforting words into her little ear, and it’s Penelope, who licks Octavia’s daemon clean and names him Percy.

“It’s from Perseus,” she explains, leaning her head on Bellamy’s thigh in her rabbit form and letting him scratch behind her long ears. And, although she knows he recognizes the story, she continues: “The only hero who got lucky.”

Bellamy cannot help but chuckle at that. Right now, Octavia sleeps soundly with his pinky finger between her tiny lips, but he knows well that his little sister will need this luck, if she is to make it. They will all need lots, lots of luck; probably more than they will get.

*

Clarke’s daemon is born with the same sand-colored fur as her hair and whines as loudly as Clarke when they want to be lifted from the crib. He loves being a snake so much that people start to wonder if he was born settled, which is… well, unsettling, to say at least. They stare at them as Clarke pats his scales and lets him slither around her neck and they whisper behind her back.

Even kindergarten kids know that people with snake daemons are not to be trusted. Words like “fake” and “cunning” and “ruthless” get tossed around so often, that she stops hearing them. And besides, Clarke hardly cares about other people’s opinions; she loves Alexander and her crayons and her parents and Wells and she doesn’t need any more than this.

Alexander’s second favorite shape is a cat with a fluffy tail and long whiskers; he jumps on Wells’ May, nipping on her ears until she barks and wiggles trying to shake him off; he curls in a ball on Clarke’s lap, purring, when she’s drawing. They are the happiest just like this, two twin stars in their own solar system, surrounded by the planets of friends and family orbiting around them. 

_Even the metal world of Ark could be exhilarating,_ reasoned Clarke to Lex, late at night, _If we could stay like this. We don’t really need Earth, this is enough._

She goes through the motions without overthinking them, does as it’s expected of her; shows off her brightness at school, and gets into a pre-med program, grows up, gets prettier every day. Kisses boys and girls and has some fun but not too much. Stands by her mother’s side while she’s operating and still remains a daddy’s girl at heart. Alexander toys with ideas and forms but still likes it best to just be a tiny, soft-scaled snake, curving into a bracelet on Clarke’s wrist, underneath her sleeve.

And the end strikes out of the blue, shattering everything in its wake.

Jake Griffin is accused of treason and sentenced to death two weeks after Clarke’s seventeenth birthday; she screams and fights with teeth and nails, this demon of rage suddenly awakened in her chest, and Alexander fights too; he slithers closer on the floor and then around the ankles and wrists and necks of the guards’ daemons, leaving scratches and bite marks in his wake; he grows and grows and attacks; he roars.

Two days later, when they both wake up from medicine induced sleep, Clarke has her face pressed to the soft mane and Alexander is looking at her with sad, golden eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Clarke.” – he says, his voice deep and stunned and desperate.

She carefully touches his paw. His claws are at the size of her fingers; she follows the lines of his long, lean body, watches as powerful muscles shift underneath pale fur. She looks around; her SkyBox cell is so tiny that they cannot be here without constantly touching each other.

Ark is a metal cage suspended among the endless space. It’s small, crowded. People’s daemons are rabbits and lizards, and spiders and she has – and she is a lion, has always been. She’s bigger than her body and bigger than her home.

People on the Ark don’t have lion daemons.

Clarke lets out a small sob and wraps her arms around his neck.

“ It’s not you, Lex. It’s me.”

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.

*

Penelope settles at the very moment Bellamy comes home to the empty cabin for the first time; Octavia, Aurora, and their daemons gone.

The blood rushes to his head, hums in his ears. The heartbreak is almost something physical, like the ache located in his chest and tearing his ribs apart.

Penny noses his thigh lightly and when he looks down at her grey fur, bright eyes and long fangs, he barely suppresses the sudden urge to scream.

‘’I guess that’s it, Bell.’’ she passes him and jumps on their bunk bed, curls up in a ball, avoiding his gaze as he collapses next to her.

He remembers fairy tales Octavia used to love, Little Red Riding Hood and a cunning, bloodthirsty wolf ready to jump, to bite, to kill. In all the stories ever written down, wolves have always been villains and if he didn’t already know he is a monster, his soul would’ve let him know right now.

*

The Match is based on daemons; after all, putting people together by comparing how much alike their souls are, seems to be pretty fool-proof, even, if only in theory. After an Arker’s daemon settles, the information is put in the base and, once a year, the lives of all settled and unmarried are tossed like a handful of seashells, just to pick up the ones that are similar and leave the rest buried in the sand.

Bellamy doesn’t mind being single, what’s more; he’s perfectly fine with that. He can’t even imagine not being single, now that he’s practically the worst possible partner in the whole goddamn space station - a janitor, a brother; his mother floated, his sister in a lock-up.

Anyway, nobody else even has a wolf daemon.

So, when his tablet beeps as he’s halfway through scrubbing the floor of the gym he used to train in (Penelope tall and graceful by his side like the biggest, most unfunny joke ever), he doesn’t expect an order to get to the Match Centre for his soon-to-be-wife’s profile.

He is given a thick pile of documents, the date and the time of the ceremony, and a brief note saying that taking into consideration the fact that he’s living alone in a cabin made for two, he won’t be relocated.

At home, he sits down on the floor, exactly above O’s former hiding spot and opens the file. Penelope, quiet till now, howls suddenly, her head thrown back until he pats her neck and silences her, still staring at the papers with his eyes widened in shock.

He expected – well, nobody, but if so, then maybe Gina from Mecha, her bobcat playfully snapping at Penny whenever they meet, so surprisingly unfazed. Or this one girl with a ponytail and fox perched on her shoulder, whom he saw near the training ring once or twice… but not this.

He might not be the most social person in the Ark, but even he heard about Clarke Griffin and her fate.

And even in his wildest dreams, he did not expect to see the mug shot of Ark’s disgraced princess staring at him with her icy blue eyes, giant lion beside her, golden and magnificent and proud - both of them.

He is to be married to the pampered revolutionary lady of Phoenix Station and, just like his daemon and his life - this would be really damn funny if it wasn’t so tragic.

*

They meet for the first time in front of Vera Kane, their daemons eying each other warily, growling quietly like a warning _do not underestimate me._

She’s wearing a simple dress, made out of a periwinkle-blue thin synthetic silk - probably a hand-me-down from her mother because the material stretches a little too much on her chest and hips, hugs her curves tighter than it probably should. She has her blonde hair, fair like the fur of her daemon, wrapped in a crown around her head; her skin is pale and her hand is small and warm, soft in his, charcoal half-moons underneath her nails.

And despite his hatred for everything she represents and against all of his will and intentions, he cannot help but think that she’s lovely.

She also looks him straight into eyes with her chin high and back perfectly straight. Her daemon is magnificent and Bellamy can’t stop glancing at it - lions are something straight out of legends, extinct even before the Cataclysm, preserved only on the illustrations in old books. And yet there it is, almost as tall as Clarke and twice wider, taking so much space that there’s hardly room for them all to move.

Penelope stands glued to his side, the strange sensation of being smaller new, and weird for her. She crooks her head a bit, perks her pointed ears up and stays alert.

Bellamy takes Clarke’s hand and promises her his devotion and protection and loyalty and she swears the same, and when Vera Kane pronounces them husband and wife, he leans down to press a dry kiss on her lips.,

He can feel Ark’s machinery underneath his feet, engines humming, gears moving; as if the ground has shifted somehow.

*

For the first few weeks, they interact as little as possible for two people and two daemons living together.

She takes his mother’s old bunk and spends whole days out. He was quite sure that after leaving SkyBox she would finish her medical training and doubted anyone would forbid her from doing so, not with how desperately Ark needed doctors. But apparently either somebody really refused to give her this position or she didn’t want it anymore, because she comes back each evening smelling like carrot substitute, artificial meat, and algae instead of like blood and antiseptics.

She nods him as for “goodnight” and spends her limited free time with a sketchbook, her lion curled on the floor and resting his big head on her lap. After a couple of days, Alexander and Penny get used to each other and simply learn to ignore each other best as possible in those circumstances.

But while half of him likes to pretend she’s not even there, Bellamy has to admit that he’s constantly surprised by her. Everything Clarke turns out to be is way different than he imagined. She takes little space for someone with a soul as big; is so quiet for someone who should roar. She requires little and asks for even less for someone pampered by the best food and best air and best education.

Most of the time, when they are together, they simply exist beside one another, two lonely planets both too lost in their own misery to seek some contact.

Until Unity Day comes.

*

“Here.” Clarke’s voice, low and quiet echo in the room as she sits beside him and sets a paper-wrapped square package on the table. “ Happy Unity Day.”

For a minute or two Bellamy is simply speechless. He could count all of the words that he exchanged with Clarke since the wedding on the fingers of one hand. And he expected her to do anything… but give him a gift.

“ I – don’t have anything for you, I’m sorry.” He manages to let out after a prolonged pause and she shakes her head in response.

“That’s fine, I didn’t expect you to.”

Alexander makes a few small steps and sits beside her chair; he’s staring at Bellamy with something like a slight amusement written on his face. Strangely expressive for a lion.

With his hands slightly shaking and Penny tense beside him, Bellamy rips through the paper.

The copy of Homer’s Odyssey is clearly worn-out and used, but it is a book. Not a library book but a book just for him. He has never had one; it must’ve cost a small fortune on black market. A whole month of food credits, at least.

It is a gift both wonderful and irritating because feeling grateful to Clarke is the last thing Bellamy needs.

“ Thank you.” He purses his lips tightly so as not to smile and traces the letters on the cover with his finger. A book! This book! “ How did you know I’d like it?

Clarke slightly crooks her head and waves in Penelope’s general direction.

“Her name.”

Of course.

“And your sister’s name. I suspected you might enjoy something connected with ancient history.”

Bellamy puts the book back on the table loudly; the blood rushes to his head, making him dizzy. Suddenly, all he sees is red. Realistically, he knew she had to learn about Octavia – she had his file after all, just like he has hers – and still.

Still.

He shifts on his chair to face Clarke and stares right at her, just like she was staring at him during the wedding – daring, unashamed, his anger bubbling underneath the surface. How dare she casually mentions O like that, after not speaking to him for months straight?

How dare she gives him expensive gifts and says that she doesn’t expect him to get her anything in return?;

How dare she has to be the one he’s stuck with?

“ And what do you think about my sister?” he barks out. Penny stands up and growls quietly, the fur on her neck rising. Suddenly, it feels as if the temperature in the room jumped up a few degrees.

But Clarke- Clarke doesn’t take the bait.

Alexander’s tail thumps on the floor when he lazily waves it and she simply returns his gaze with this unexpected softness in her blue eyes that completely throws him off guard. Under the artificial light above his mother’s sewing table, he can see every line of Clarke’s face; she has never looked so young, with her still round cheeks and tangled eyelashes. But the look she gives him is not the one she gave him earlier; either disinterested or defiant. No, this time she’s opened, vulnerable. She sighs heavily and says simply:

“Who am I to judge you, Bellamy?”

Bellamy. His name sounds strange, spoken by her. Softer. Gentler. Almost like a melody, strange and beautiful, making his heart stutter in his chest and lose a rhythm for a second.

*

A week after she gives him the book, she comes home to find a new sketchbook on her cot.

It’s thick and the cover is silvery-grey, just like the fur of his daemon; she takes it in her hands, opens it to look for a note but finds nothing. Whatever his intentions were, he doesn’t reveal them; neither on paper nor when he later comes back from work and goes straight to sleep.

And Clarke doesn’t ask.

( But tomorrow, during the 15-minute lunch break, she will absentmindedly reach for this sketchbook and start to draw and before she even realizes it, a strong jawline and a pair of intelligent eyes appear on the paper).

*

It goes like this; she gives him the book, he gives her the sketchbook. He asks her how her day was and she answers. She offers to cut his way-too-long hair and does so with surgical precision and he spots the holes in her worn-out sweaters and mends them.

They sign a peace treaty ending this weird war of silence between them without any ceremonies and then they move towards one another in small steps, begin dancing this new dance which includes long stares and diligent observations and “please”-s and “thank you”-s, overly polite and way too formal.

Their daemons could serve as an illustration of this change; more often than not they spend whole evenings circling one another, their previous animosity turned into curiosity – Alexander would sniff Penelope’s nose and she would watch him with her head crooked and narrowed eyes, alert once again.

One night, Bellamy sits beside Clarke on the lower bunk and she opens her sketchbook and shows him her drawings. He turns the pages, one by one and it feels as if she granted him access to the insides of her pretty blonde head. Here is Penny, curled in a ball with a nose covered by her fluffy tail and looking like a cuddly kid’s toy. Here is Chancellor’s son, smiling with his eyes closed and a parrot perched on his shoulder. Here is a window, and the giant shadow of Earth behind it. Here is some woman with a net on her hair, leaning down to smell her soup, a grey rat standing on its hind legs on the top of her head. Here is an older man petting a beagle daemon and crying. 

And here is Bellamy.

Captured in gentle strokes of the pencil on the paper, in black and white and shades of grey. Bellamy reading, Bellamy sleeping, Bellamy with a needle in his hand.

Clarke blushes slightly when he points out the number of drawings, shrugs, and tries to play it off as “you have a very interesting face”, but he doesn’t fall for that, nor does he try to give the fact more significance than it deserves.

It just means she’s been watching him, the way he watches her. Learning him in her own way. Trying to understand how to approach him before doing so.

He respects that. He knows now how misleading his first impression of her was; she is more careful than bold and more cunning than reckless and more contemplative than loud, although it all exists within her. Alexander is a strange daemon indeed, but he fits her well – he serves as a warning to strangers, given an impression of her character that is not visible on the first look.

 _Do not underestimate us_ , he says while Clarke looks innocent as dawn, with her face scrubbed clean and hair in a braid. _There is a reason we are here._

*

One afternoon, he finishes work early and is just about to come back to his apartment when Penny nudges his hand gently.

‘’Doesn’t Clarke’s shift end in half an hour?’’

‘’I suppose it does.’’ Bellamy shrugs, stopping mid-corridor and leaning on the wall to look at his daemon. ‘’What about it?’’

‘’We could walk her home.’’

Penelope seems somehow nervous proposing it, which sounds weird cause he’s quite sure she has never been nervous around him whole their life. She’s his soul, for fuck’s sake.

He considers her idea for a moment, then spends a second or two contemplating how she was the one to make it and something in his chest stirs weirdly, so he decides to stop pondering.

‘’Okay.’’

*

Bellamy has the most beautiful, breathtaking smile when he thinks no one is watching. Sometimes, Clarke dreams about this smile, about seeing it in full bloom, directed at her.

Sometimes, she wonders what would it feel like to run her fingers across his lips when they’re curved like that.

*

‘’You can’t sleep?’’

‘’… yeah. You too?’’

‘’Yes.’’

‘’Do you want me to tell you a story? I used it – I used to tell goodnight stories to O. Before.’’

‘’What kind of story?’’

‘’Any. Have you ever heard about Penelope and Odysseus?’’

‘’No. But I think I would like to. Is this the Penelope after whom Penny is named?’’

‘’The same one.’’

‘’Tell me, then.’’

*

She confesses her mother's crime in the dead of the night, her eyes the only shiny thing in the world, voice so rough it barely sounds like hers. But when he responds with his own confession, she takes his hand in hers and squeezes it tightly enough to make him gasp.

''My mother's choices are not mine - and your mother's choices are not yours either,'' she growls almost. Alexander's lips curl upwards exposing long canines. ''You did your best, Bellamy. Stop blaming yourself, when there's _nothing_ to blame you for.'' 

Her words are just words, empty like a bell chime. They don't change anything. 

And yet, they feel heavy and light at once, soothing, pounding in his chest, reverberating in his bones. 

When Clarke pulls him to her cot and wraps her arms around him, he doesn't stop her. Until the morning comes, he's counting her breaths with his fingers tangled in her hair - and Penelope is sleepless too, curled on the floor with Alexander and watching him with knowing eyes.

 _Let it go, Bellamy. - s_ he seems to be saying. _\- Just let it go._

*

They’re sending the juvies to the ground.

They’re sending _Octavia_ to the ground, to Earth. The same Earth which, as they were told, over and over again, is supposed to be uninhabitable and toxic.

As Clarke tells him about it, she’s sitting curled on the floor with her hands buried in Alexander’s fur and avoiding Bellamy’s panicked gaze.

‘’The Ark is dying, Bellamy.’’ She utters, not giving him a chance to process the bomb she’s just dropped. ‘’That’s the truth that got my dad killed. So-‘’

‘’So the solution is to kill kids now, right? Send them down there to die.’’ Bellamy does not want to shout. Somewhere, in more rational part of his brain, he knows none of it is Clarke’s fault; but when he’s looking at her, all he can think of is that she was in Sky Box too, and yet they let her out. Clarke’s sitting next to him, while Octavia is on her way to the Dropship and no one can convince him it’s just a simple coincidence.

‘’Your mom bought you some more time to live, by marrying you off to me, didn’t she?’’ he barks and Clarke’s brow furrows as she whips her head up to meet his stare.

‘’Maybe. I don’t know. If she did, she didn’t tell me that. But the point is – you may hate it, but Octavia has higher chances down there than up here. We’re out of the air. If the Earth doesn’t support us, we’re all dead anyway.’’

He hates how reasonable she sounds, how fool-proof her logic is. He hates her blonde hair and blue, defiant eyes, and Alexander’s solemn statue. He hates how Penelope lowers her head and bumps his side, urging him to calm down.

‘’At least- at least we would’ve died together.’’ Something alike a sob escapes from his chest. ‘’And now she’s gone and I may never see her again.’’

Hot tears burn his cheek and he raises his arm to wipe them away when Clarke, quick as a flash, rises to her feet and does it for him. His jaw clenches involuntarily as she gently runs the sides of her hands across his skin, a little wrinkle carved deep in-between her brows.

_She’s so beautiful._

This thought, while not new, catches him completely off-guard. Clarke’s standing so close and her hands are so small, but not soft anymore; they’re rough, calloused, damaged by burns, chemicals and too much scrubbing. She smells like the cheap soap they’re given... but also something else, something entirely hers. Sweet and delicate, indescribable.

Wisps of hair that have escaped her braid framing her face. Her bright blue eyes locked with his.

Lips slightly parted.

Everything goes awfully still and silent.

Clarke’s hands drop down and she slowly laces her fingers with his.

‘’I’m so sorry, Bellamy. I wish – you don't deserve it, either of you. I’m so sorry.’’ Even if her skin is not soft, her words make up for it through the gentleness with which they’re delivered. ‘’You deserve better. You are better than this.’’

At the corner of his eye, he sees Penelope taking a few soft steps towards Alexander, hesitant at first and then nuzzling his big head with such an affection Bellamy’s heart clenches because he feels it, deep inside, like someone was tugging on his heartstrings.

All there is, is the blue of Clarke’s eyes, their fingers entwined and one of his hands moves to rest on her hip to press her closer, closer, never close enough; her lashes flutter and the blue is gone, and then she stands on her tiptoes and he leans down and they’re kissing and it’s everything he has ever felt all at once and so much more.

He wants to get lost in it, forget that anything else even exists beside the swirl of her tongue on his bottom lip and the smell of her hair, but then the air shifts and something soft caresses his hand, the one holding Clarke’s and she gently unlaces their fingers and guides them down-

Soft, golden fur, feeling like a sunset on his skin; something in his chest flutters and then snaps, harshly and violently and he gasps but Clarke’s gasping too, breaking the kiss; her eyes still closed as she throws her head back, breath heaving and body trembling. He caresses her cheek and pats Alexander’s golden head lightly, feeling his muscles vibrating under his touch.

‘’ Penelope.’’ – he summons her quietly and there she is, swift and calm as a world after the storm, nosing Clarke's thigh and then-

Clarke snaps her eyes open, eyes almost electric and then drops on her knees, her fingers tangling in Penny’s black fur, scratching behind her ears and Bellamy almost loses it, then and forever; his legs give in and he sits on the floor next to her, burying his face in Alexander’s mane, all sparkles and beauty and, for the once in his life, there’s nothing that hurts him, not even in slightest.

For once in his life, he does not think about Octavia or his mom, or the dying Ark and the fact that all there is left for them is this dark, gaping cosmic void. Not, when Clarke’s very soul, strong and pure, burns alongside his, keeping them warm.

*

She falls asleep with her ears pressed to his chest, feeling safe and sound for the first time since Alexander settled. And when she wakes up, he’s still there; his chin propped on the crown of her head, leaning against Alexander’s side. There’s Penny’s fur in-between Clarke’s fingers, her paws resting on her lap.

It must be how heaven’s like - to be so close to someone that you can touch their very soul, can have it wrapped around you in a loving embrace.

*

‘’Do you know who Adam and Eve were?’’

‘’First humans, right?’’

‘’Yes. First humans, first parents. Nice story, there’s everything in it. Romance and tragedy and betrayal.’’

‘’But the ending’s sad. They are banished and can never go back home.’’

‘’I don’t think that they can never come back. Maybe it just takes them a long time to find the way.’’

*

When the time comes, they step onto the ship first, hand-in-hand, and they fall to the Earth-like stars. There’s a brave new world waiting for them, big and wide enough for their souls to stretch their limbs and shine.

It’s time to do just that.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed the story, please leave me a comment! I would be so freaking nice to hear fellow bellarke shippers once more, I missed you all guys.


End file.
